P: Video capture time shifted by time zone offset

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I recently got a 5D IV and just noticed that capture times on video files shows 5 hours ahead in Lightroom (photos are fine). This causes videos taken late in the day to be imported into the folder for the next day. I'm running the latest Lightroom (6.10) and 5D Firmware (1.04). I checked my old 5D Mark III videos and they are fine. 

I suspect Lightroom ins't picking up the timezone info and is using UTC time.  Is this a bug?

[JohanElzenga]

See my answer here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/problem-with-quot-creation-date-quot-on...

[John R Ellis]

To build on Johan's reply, the Quicktime standard (incorporated by the ISO standard) was poorly defined by Apple with respect to capture dates, specifying that the date/times should be recorded in UTC and providing no way to also store a time zone.  But many cameras, not having a notion of time zone, record "local time" in the capture-date field.  So LR assumes those date/times are in local time and interprets them as such (where "local" means the clock on the computer running LR).

Cameras with Internet or GPS connections typically do know their time zone, and they typically do record capture date according to the standard in UTC.  Your DJI has GPS and likely is obeying the standard, recording times in UTC.  But LR assumes it's the typical non-connected camera and interprets that time as "local".

So are you in EDT (UTC - 4)?  

This is an industry mess not of Adobe's making.  In principal, LR could do a better job, with a database of camera models telling it how to interpret the capture times (analogous to its camera and lens databases for raw), but Adobe has never cared much about video, much less cared about video metadata.  So you'll have to use the Metadata > Edit Capture Time command to shift all the videos by your time-zone offset.

The reason you see time-zone-correct times in Finder is that cameras record file dates using the "local" time from their clocks along with a time zone (if the camera has that setting).  You often see differences between the capture dates stored in the photo or video and the file times on the memory card because the camera firmware sets them at slightly different times.  With photos in some cameras, they can differ by a fraction of a second, but with video, but the length of the video clip, depending on what times the camera firmware chooses (the beginning of the clip, the end of the clip, or something in between).

(There's a longer story why LR gets the capture times of iOS video correct, involving "unique" legal interpretations by Adobe corporate counsel. But that's for another day...)

[TeeKoo]

Does anyone else have this issue or does anyone know what this might be about?

I´ve been using Nikon Z6II for about half a year now. It seems that when importing videos (shot with Z6II) to Lightroom Classic (Mac OS), the time of the videos (when was it shot) get somehow mixed. Everything is in order in the camera, but in Lightroom catalogue it shows as if the video was shot a exactly three hours earlier it actually was. For example I shoot photos and videos at 8 pm, and import them to LR Classic, all the photos´ info show just as they should the correct date and time, but the videos´ info show that they where shot on that day but at 5 pm.

I´ve been trying to go through the menus and preferences and trying to figure out what could cause this, but no avail. My Nikon D850 doesn´t do that, and I believe the problem can´t be in the Z6II either, as the time of the videos in the camera appear ok.

Why is this?

[John R Ellis]

This problem is caused by a poorly written Quicktime / MP4 industry standard for how to record capture dates that many (but not all) cameras fail to obey.  LR could work around this by having a list of those cameras that don't obey the standard (just as LR knows how to interpret proprietary raw files), but Adobe has chosen not to do this.

The workaround is to select all newly imported videos, do Metadata > Edit Capture Time, and select Shift By Set Number Of Hours. 

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the existing Bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-video-capture-time-shifted-by-time-zone-offs...

[jermar073]

Videos taken on Samsung S23 Ultra show capture times incorrectedly shifted by +7 hours in Mac version of Lightroom Classic (Vers  12.4) versus actual capture times (as shown in the phone and in the Mac Finder files).  Still-photos taken by the same Samsung phone show no such shift.  Also stills and videos from an iPhone 13 Pro show no such shifts.

Using Lightrrom Metadata menu to shift the photos -7 hours one-time corrects the problem without changing the file times in the finder (repeated Metadata menu shifts do affect the file times in the finder, however).

[John R Ellis]

You're stumbling over a longstanding industry standards mess, caused by a poorly written Quicktime /MP4 standard for how to record capture dates:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/video-files-have-incorrect-time-stamps/...

Adobe has worked around this problem for Apple devices but no other manufacturer.

The only workaround is to use the Metadata > Edit Capture Time to change the capture date that LR stores in the catalog.

Finder doesn't show the metadata capture date -- it shows the Date Created and Date Modified, which is when the file itself was created and modified by the operating system or camera. They are often but not always the same as the capture date stored in the photo/video metadata, and once you use the Edit Capture Time command to change the metadata capture date, they're guaranteed to be different.

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-video-capture-time-shifted-by-time-zone-offs...

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-video-capture-time-shifted-by-time-zone-offs...

[lazydiver]

Hi!

I normally use a customized file naming formula that looks like this: 

{Date (YYYY)>>}-{Date (MM)>>}-{Date (DD)>>}-{Hour>>}{Minute>>}-{SequenceNumber (001)>>}

resulting in filenames like 2023-07-29-1356-023. (The formula is written manually and translated from Swedish, meaning that there could be an error in the syntax in English, but god enough to get the idea.)

I have used this file naming method for many years without problems. But now that I have started to import video and stills mixed, and into the same catalogue, I have discovered that videos are always set back two hours (approximately?) in the file name, i.e. if a photo has a file name as above, a video shot just around the same time will receive the file name 2023-07-29-1156-002. (NEF and MOV files will aso receive seprate sequence numbers, as I import them in seprate sessions from different memory cards). 

I live in Sweden and have the camera set to time zone GMT+1 and currently also "summertime", e.g. my local time is 2 hours ahead of GMT. Could this be a bug in Lightroom Classic?

[lazydiver]

I did a check, confirming the 2 hour discrepancy between the creation timestamp and the time used in the filename. Sorry for the Swedish interface, but you can still see it. 

[John R Ellis]

LR has always gotten video capture dates wrong, shifted by the time zone amount. This is caused by a poorly written Quicktime spec that gets interpreted differently by different cameras:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-video-capture-time-shifted-by-time-zone-offs...

While it would be simple for LR to improve its handling of video capture dates, Adobe has never made it a priority.

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-video-capture-time-shifted-by-time-zone-offs...

[John R Ellis]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography, I just noticed this bug is marked as Fixed, even though the bug still occurs for any non-IOS camera that obeys the Quicktime standard and writes the time in UTC to the field Quicktime:CreateDate.  This will typically include Android phones, drones, and other devices that get their time from the Internet or GPS. It also includes the Nikon Z6 II, which records "local time" in the video's MakerNotes and UTC in Quicktime:CreateDate (I don't know where the camera gets "local time").

Should we start a new Bug?

[lazydiver]

Hi and thanks! You can add Nikon Z 9 (and thus probably also all other cameras in the Nikon Z series) to the cameras that stores time in a way that creates a time shift in Adobe Lightroom.

[lazydiver]

An also my drone DJI Mini 3 Pro.

[lazydiver]

So yes, please, start a new bug report. 

[John R Ellis]

@lazydiver, "You can add Nikon Z 9"

I'd like to understand precisely what's happening with the Z cameras.  In the Z 9's Menu > Time Zone And Date, are you changing the time zone?

[John R Ellis]

@lazydiver, "An also my drone DJI Mini 3 Pro."

Can you please upload a short, unedited sample video to Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar, and post the sharing link here? That will let me verify the DJI problem is as expected.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

For those of you still experiencing this issue, please consider moving your additional discussion and votes to the new feature request thread. 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-handle-video-capture-times-for-cameras-obey...